RichardWrites

Yup, Aedan finally realizes he has feelings for Jake, it's kind of been there for a few chapters though. We don't see Jake's point of view in the story, but it is interesting that he asked for a kiss as a birthday gift. The haunted part.... well... I can say in the universe of my stories, spirits are very much a thing that exist. And there was some sort of seance in that haunted library that summoned them. Definitely more of a "side quest" kind of scene though. When I reached freshman year in high school, there was definitely a sharp cutoff in who went out for trick or treat on Halloween night. And definitely some peers, like Matt in the story, who scoff at the idea of doing something more geared towards younger kids. According to Jake, the parents gave out less candy to the teenagers, so it might not have been worth it for him in the end lol.

December 7 2019 I entered the house after a Saturday basketball game and in desperate need of a shower. “Hey mom!” I announced as I entered with dad and Toby. Mom couldn’t attend the game as she had a hangover from her 40th birthday last night. I went to my room to shower and change as I had a Christmas party to go to later this evening. Cody was hosting it. “How was the game honey?” she called up to me as I was undressing. “Great! We won! I need to shower!” I loved taking

oooh I have a story sitting in my documents folder that could work for one of these two themes. It's been started but haven't worked on it much since high school (oops lol) but I have a good idea for where I want it to go. It was going to be 5 or 6 chapters, but I know these anthologies are usually encouraged to be one-shots so I'll have to just make it that way.

October 31 2018 I got home with Jake after his soccer game. Jake scored a goal and looked really cute in his uniform. “Hey, I am going with some friends to check out the haunted side of town tonight. You wanna come with us?” I asked as I set my backpack on a hook in the laundry room. “I thought you were trick or treating with River?” Jake took off his dirty cleats. “Nah, he’s going with his friends. He specifically told me not to go. He said I’m lame...” I laughed. “Besides, I’

I;m glad they come across as intended. It felt realistic because Cody & Oliver were close friends for several years before they started dating so they'd naturally have good chemistry together. Yup. Cody's little sister tells it like it is.xD Oliver was just feeling queasy after overeating at thanksgiving dinner. The coach is just trying to prevent distractions for them. And the fact that he could probably get into serious trouble if they are caught doing anything naughty. I'm not a coach though so I might be wrong.

Glad you are enjoying the story About 5 ish chapters remain Yup, Bailey is a bit crazy. Kevin immediately believed his sister. And Jake is naive and maybe holding onto Bailey because she’s the only one who openly likes him romantically.

November 9 2019 I stepped into the Jasper County Fairgrounds with my brother and parents. It was the weekend of the Harvest Festival, and pretty much everyone in the county came to this thing. Including Cody! But I am banned from talking to him by my stupid parents. “Mom, dad, I’m gonna take Oliver to see the baby goats,” Toby announced. My parents seemed ok with that and I followed Toby to the pens where the baby goats were being displayed. We washed our hands before approaching them

Well, I wasn’t expecting a bonus chapter but I’ll post in one last long comment. This one was heavy and intense, with Joel having a confrontation with his parents. Cody has a few gifts from Joel now: that old baseball glove, the football video game, and now they’ll get to spend more time together on weekends. Hopefully that will help Cody’s behavior improve, since apparently he’s been acting up for the past month. This kind of tied off a loose end regarding Joel’s parents. The rest or this is just gonna be speculation. The parents might get divorced over this, since Lisa decided to rip the family apart by kicking Joel out. I’m no fan of divorce but it might be for the best, when the dad wants to have normal relationships with his sons and the mom wants nothing to do with one of them. I could have been Joel in all honesty. My parents aren’t the most accepting of LGBT things, so when they found out when I was 16, they probably could have kicked me out as well. They didn’t of course for various reasons, but I lucked out, because I don’t know what I would have done. There may not have been a Trace Connley to rescue me. Anyways, thanks for the story. I’ll have to give it 5 ⭐️

August 27 2018 After a long, and underwhelming first day of school, I was at Lacrosse practice with Connor and Vincent. Most days, we would be having practice during seventh period, but the first day of school didn’t have normal class periods, so we had practice after school. Vincent had been going on and on about his girlfriend. “You wanna bet he don’t actually have a girl...?” I snickered quietly to Connor, who nodded and laughed. “Hey! I do have a girlfriend!” Vincent argued

Oliver is looking to get accepted somewhere for college. He does have talents that can get him in. His mom is very controlling, even making going to practice a big deal. He also has to sneak out to spend some time alone with Cody outside of school hours. Oliver is overall a good driver by teenager standards so no car accidents involving him today. Also we are at around the halfway point for the story in terms of chapter numbers. 25 will be the last one.

I won't comment on Kelly just yet. Aedan felt comfortable going to a pride week event and came out to his supportive mom so those were his main wins in this one. Aedan has a few different crushes going on at this point, so we'll see who wins out. He and the others are starting high school in the next chapter so he's going to have to adjust to that as well.

Haha I'm glad you noticed. That was a little reference to a show called Gravity Falls. One of the episodes features a DnD knockoff board game that uses 38-sided dice.

October 11 2019 I sat in the band hall to eat lunch with Toby, as usual for Fridays for the past month. Cody was having lunch with his football friends as usual before his football games, and frankly, that was annoying. I, of course, am an introvert, but I still like having friends around to talk to, even if I only really have a few real friends in school. However, I wasn’t fond of all the flirting freshmen band girls who mobbed me every time I was in the band hall. “Remind me again w

What a nice ending. Happy birthday to Joel and Cody. Joel turned 18 and Cody is now 11. A lot happened in this final chapter, so I’ll do my best to cover most of it. Cody is so adorable. I’m glad he had fun at the party and Lacy is a new friend for him. And the Joey nickname is just too cute lmao. I know Cody is close to Joel from him getting brought up a lot in the narrating and the dialogue, but it’s very sweet that Joel looks out for him. I was thinking Joel and Cody should be texting, but Cody is probably too young for a cell phone. But in a year or 2 he’ll be old enough to have a cell phone and catch up with Joel while Joel is in college somewhere. Gavin finally talked to Joel about things and had figured him out from spending time with Davin and sneaking around. I do give Gavin credit though he figured out Davin before everyone else by a few years. I’m pretty sure Colt, Celia, and Trace don’t know Davin was gay. Davin had a suspicion that Gavin knew, but I guess this confirms it since the twins never had a specific talk about it. We figured out why Colt doesn’t want to go into ranching. He’d rather go to Nashville and be a musician. I guess he hasn’t told his parents about that dream. Lorianne figured things out on her own, but I guess she thought Roel (Roy x Joel) was a thing. The kiss on the cheek I saw it coming. She’s had a little crush on Joel since early on it seems. I’m glad Mr Benton gave Joel the savings from his closed Tempton bank account. I was expecting an appearance from Mrs Benton, but clearly she’s as cold as Francine. Westley is unchanged still the same jerk from chapter 1. He could of at least waited to get the wrapped up food in the car I’m sure he would have wanted some cake lol. Celia and Trace are great as always. Making Cody feel welcome and sticking up for their new adopted son when Francine gets rude about things. A little shocked whrn Joel spilled all the tea to Francine, when he wasn’t willing to with anyone else except Trace, who had saved him on that bridge back in Tempton. i was kinda expecting one last confrontation from Jax but hopefully he’s learned his lesson to not pick on the new guy in town. Only one thing remains…….. Who is Colt’s song about?!?! Anyways this was a good story. See ya around everyone.

June 16, 2018, Whalebone, Mass. I had nailed in the last nail on the new deck for the beach house before wiping the sweat from my face. Jake and I were helping Mr. Grant replace the deck after several winter storms broke the old one due to coastal flooding. I grabbed my tank top and hung it on my shoulder before Jake helped me up. The project had taken a few days of working, but I was getting some pay and a good workout out of it. Jake did a lot of the screwdriver stuff since he has smalle

Interesting, I guess I have to give tne characters different accents in my mind now because I guess I let my biases think it was the south. Flat rural corn belt midwest makes sense too though. Would be places like Kansas/Nebraska/Iowa/Illinois/Indiana. Montana I guess would fit the ranching vibe but not flat out there with 12-thousand-foot mountain peaks in the rockies.

So apparently this was the second to last chapter according to some of the comments. Hard to believe this is nearly over. Gonna get one last major thought I have had for a while out of the way before the end. If it has already been addressed at some other time, then I’m sorry. There’s been so many comments it’s hard to keep track of and read them! Lol So in stories, like this one, where no state is mentioned for the setting, I like to try and guess what state/area the setting is (yeah I guess I am strange) We did get some town/county names: Fletcher County, and Tempton, which is in Johnston County. Doing Google searches, there is no Fletcher County in the US (a bit of a surprise there) and no towns named Tempton (but there are cities called Templeton). But there is a Johnston County in North Carolina. Based on other things in the story, it does seem like this is set in the south, so North Carolina isn’t an unreasonable guess for where these characters live.

Yes, the principal is very biased. The reform school involves students from some of the other schools in the district/county/region so maybe some of the other principals are probably also biased. It's another one of those mostly preppy New England towns. Aedan does have behavioral problems sometimes, but he has improved and should have gotten off this time. At least one of the other reform school students did deserve to be there, but yeah they sent Aedan back to his normal school after a week of good behavior. At least he and Jake repaired their friendship and are off to high school next year. And we'll have to see what happens with Bailey who apparently has some interest in Jake romantically.

Oliver's parents are Catholic so they're not too fond of premarital sex. And his mom is super against gay sex so double dislike from her. lol Oliver will have to be more sneaky spending time with Cody. At least they can talk at school between classes or at their lunch period. They don't have any classes together though, since Cody is in multiple honors/AP classes and Oliver is not. Not sure if the dad had done anything before marriage. His opinions on it might also be different now that he's over 40 vs when he was a teenager long ago. As for Toby, if he has done anything with one of his girlfriends, he hasn't gotten caught and he never told his brother about it. Oliver was just assuming that he might have done something. Eggplant and banana mean the same thing in this context haha. I guess I should have been more consistent.

Joel already seems to have some admirers lined up. Lorianne, the Ames Twins, and apparently also Lance xD. At least Joel knows he could probably come out to his friends at the “gay table” at lunch. They’d be supportive about it. Jax was being friendly-ish for once, and hopefully they can just agree to stay away from each other. But I’m assuming Jax is going to pull some stupid thing again. And then there’s the birthday party coming up too.

April 2 2018 I closed the door to my locker and was about to walk to ELA class, when I overheard some voices several lockers to my right. “What a spoiled little faggot... Your punk friend lives with you in your big fancy ass mansion. And you play with frisbees every day,” Kevin was harassing Jake at his locker! Yeah, Jake’s been a jerk to me for the last few weeks, but I ain’t just gonna let him get bullied. “Hey! Leave him alone!” I walked up. The football player laughed. “Yo

October 4 2019 “It looks like Cody Hafer, Number 46, from the Jasper County Wolverines, is running towards the end zone from the 21 yard line! Incredible! Hafer makes his first touchdown of the Fall 2019 season! And the final touchdown for the Wolverines homecoming game!” I stood up and cheered for my boyfriend, with Logan next to me doing the same. I don’t know much about football, nor did I have any skill at the sport, but I came to games when I could to support Cody, especially no

Last week's version had 3 comments. I will re-type them here so you guys don't have to re-comment your thoughts. @chris191070 said: Aedan seems to be having a rough time at the moment @weinerdogsaid: GF/BF breaking up and best friends falling out? I know it's middle school but the reasons here are so lame. Me quote-replying to the 2 above: Yeah, he's been acting like a bit of a player after his breakup. Jake has expressed being a little envious of Aedan before, so we'll see. Aedan might be jumping to conclusions again. It's likely not enough to permanently end their friendship, though. Rather just a fight/disagreement of sorts. It's 8th grade so BF/GF relationships are relatively un-serious at this point (as Jake pointed out), even if the characters don't see it that way in the moment. He's got a bit of a point about her snooping in his private sketch book, though. Even if he acted a bit irrationally.

Sunday Feb 11 2018 I was sitting on my bed practicing drawing in anime style and listening to music on my pear phone with earbuds. In the middle of drawing, I stood up to use the bathroom. When I came back a few minutes later, Violet was in my room and she was looking at my drawings. “Hey! What’re you doin’ in here?” I shut the sketch book and tried to shove her out. “I was just returning those colored pencils I borrowed,” my older sister raised up her hands in defeat and handed me y

We haven't seen Oliver in academic settings too much. But he does struggle a lot in school. In chapter 6, he was struggling on a chemistry test to the point where he just had to guess. He has certain things he is interested in that might naturally come easier to him. School just doesn't come easily to him, while it does for Toby and Cody. He does enough to pass in (most of) his classes. He's uncertain about his abilities to get accepted into college based on that, while Cody has a lot more options open to him in that way. Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses at the end of the day.